COMPUTING TOPIC COMPONENT ONE parts of a computer system Flashcards
What is the purpose of a computer?
to take data, process it, then output it
Why were computers built?
to help process data and complete tasks more efficiently than humans
What does a computer system consist of?
hardware and software that work together to process tasks
What is hardware?
the physical stuff that makes up your computer
What is software?
the programs or applications that a computer system runs
What are external pieces of hardware called?
peripherals
How are there many types of computers sytems?
- range from small (calculators) to big (supercomputers used by banks)
- general purpose (PCs) to dedicated systems (controlling traffic lights)
What are emedded systems?
computers built into other devices e.g. microwaves and TVs, they are usually dedicated systems
What do embedded systems do?
- often used as control machinery, they monitor and control the other parts to produce a desired result
- as they’re dedicated to a single task, they are usually easier to design, cheaper to produce and more efficient at their job than a general purpose computer
What does the power supply do?
provide power to motherboard, optical and hard drives, and other hardware
What does a case cooling fan do?
extracts hot air from inside the computer case
What does the CPU heat sink and cooling fan do?
keeps the CPU at a steady temperature
What does the CPU do?
processes all the data and instructions that make a computer work
What does the Hard Disk Drive do?
provide internal secondary storage
What does the motherboard do?
the main circuit board in the computer where all the hardware is connected
What does the optical drive do?
the reading/writing of optical disks
What does the processing power of the CPU depend on?
- clock speed
- number of cores
- cache size
What does the CPU architecture describe?
- the main components of the CPU
- how they interact with each other
- how they interact with other parts of the system
What are the three main parts of the CPU?
- the control unit
- the arithmetic logic unit
- the cache
What does the control unit do?
- in overall control of the CPU, main job is to execute program instructions following the fetch-decode-execute cycle
- controls the flow of data inside and outside the CPU
What does the arithmetic logic unit do?
- does all the calculations
- simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and compares the size of numbers
- performs logic operations such as AND, OR, NOT
- performs binary shifts
What does the cache do?
- very fast memory in CPU, slower than registers but faster than RAM
- stores regularly used data so that the CPU can access it quicker
- when the CPU requests data, it will first check the cache to see if it’s there, if not then it will check the RAM
- caches have a very low capacity and are expensive compared to the RAM
What are the different levels of cache memory?
- L1, L2, L3
- L1 is quickest but holds the least, L2 is slower but holds more, L3 is slowest but holds the most
What are the CPU registers?
- temporarily hold tiny bits of data needed by the CPU
- they are super quick to read/write to, much quicker than any form of memory